Hong Kong newspaper lays off 20 staff in cost-cutting move

Sing Tao News Corporation laid off about 20 employees on Wednesday, weeks after it cut or froze their wages in a bid to cut costs.

The move to cut staff has not been officially announced, but employees said individual colleagues had received notices from the group’s human resources department, which had received a list of staff members who were being asked to leave.

The affected staff members come from various departments including the group’s flagship Chinese-language daily Sing Tao Daily and its free English tabloid The Standard, as well as its profitable free Chinese-language tabloid Headline Daily and the weekly magazine East Touch.

Sing Tao Daily’s crime and entertainment sections were worst hit, with about six staff being axed. One or two journalists in each of the other sections of the daily also had to leave.

A journalist who has worked for Sing Tao Daily for almost two decades and did not want to be named said they had learned that another round of lay-offs might come in three months if there was no sign of improvement in advertising revenue.

He said his colleagues were angry about the group because this was already its second round of cost-cutting since April.